


Autumn Fae, Summer Kingdom

by Megane



Category: Brontide, The Tempest Series - T. D. Cloud
Genre: Companions, Emotional Hurt, Emotionally Shutting Down, Fae & Fairies, Heartbreak, Longing, Romance, Servants, Transformation, Vulnerability, breakdown - Freeform, hurt little comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 13:33:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9074194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megane/pseuds/Megane
Summary: For a while, Ruari just needs to do. It's not very kingly, but it's what his heart demands.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative title: **Autumn Fae of the Summer Kingdom.**
> 
> It's just so much fun to write about Ruari not being happy. I'm sorry; I promise I'll fix that very, very soon.

There was a part of Ruari that felt like a fool because his happiness resided in a human. It was a small part, a part aged like wine in the many, sheltered years underground. He took humans like playthings. He made them lovers, for a time, but he never put his happiness into them. They just weren't worth it. In truth, little had been. But even that little, tiny part of Ruari that felt foolish about being so woefully, unbearably in love had to admit that this was a change from the lonely, lonely years.

It was a better change. A sweeter change.

Corbet was everything he couldn't have expected and more. Corbet was the personification of the sunlight, of freedom and youthfulness and mortality that Ruari could never truly identify with but adored from afar. He was beauty unprecedented in this magical place. He was so natural and truly, truly human down to his very core. There was no mimicry, no tricks.

And now he was gone.

Ruari took in a deep breath and rested his forehead against the wall of his bed chamber. He hadn't been out in a couple of days, not to the surface anyway. He wanted to go up and feel the sun on his face. He wanted to brush his fingers over the flowers and the grass. He wanted to just _be_ up there in the radiant above ground and breathe in the thick forest air. He wanted it, but duties kept him from doing so. His own maudlin heart prevented him from doing so. So many things kept him rooted to this spot like a plant in a confined space.

Truly, that's what he was, and he felt himself wilting.

Ruari curled his fingers against the wall, and his skin flaked away. The glamour he kept so effortlessly before finally fell. He couldn't care anymore. His heart didn't care for the vain theatrics. For who did he have to impress? Who was here with him in this lonely room to see him as he came apart. No one. He opened his eyes; his vision blurred as his magic shifted the contours of his face and changed his very sight. Ruari closed his eyes, stood up straight, and leaned back. He pushed away from the wall, sighing through his nose as he blindly took a couple of steps back. He propped up his right leg, balancing on the balls of his foot.

The softness of Ruari's flesh had broken in some places, relenting to a hard, bark-like exterior. He reached up to pull the robe down from his shoulders, feeling a burning and coaxing at his back. He made a soft, almost pained noise. From his back sprouted wings made of twigs and vines. Ruari's brows twitched as something along his back took a new shape. He brought a hand up to his mouth, letting his robe dangle sensually from his body. A sleeve caught and hung around his left wrist, barely holding on. A riveted branch ran down his spine; the bark smooth but incredibly hard.

Thin vines crept along his arms and body becoming his new veins. Dozens came together at his throat, forming a dark green collar that reached up and curled under his jaw. Ruari's fine teeth– and how nice and fine they were by human standards– grew beastly and uneven. His teeth sharpened and gnashed against one another. His canines and the first premolars on his upper row grew until they could fit past his lips, leaving his mouth slightly parted to accommodate them. His irises changed into a deep, earthy green. To those who looked close enough, they looked black, and at times, they were.

Horns of wood sprouted from his forehead before appearing in smaller form near his temples and just over the tips of his ears. The dark wood played beautifully to the fiery tones of his hair. Ruari growled, low in his throat, dissatisfied by the state of himself and yet not caring enough to change it. There was a knock at his door. He turned his head the opposite way and extended his will to open it. He lowered his hand down from his mouth, let it slide along his chest, and then hang down at his side.

       “Sire,” came Roisin's voice as they flipped through paperwork. There was _always_ paperwork. Even in a state like this, Ruari would not be saved from his imperial duties. He longed for a distraction, but at the first thought his mind gave, he felt a deep pain in himself.

       “I need you to review something,” continued Roisin from further away. They sounded near his desk now, not having yet noticed his state. “Luckily for _you_ , it's not terribly urgent,” they muttered under their breath.

Ruari turned his head, staring silently at Roisin who seemed so focused in their work. So endlessly dutiful. Ruari envied them, appreciated them dearly. Roisin set three stacks of papers in a row and then sighed. They placed their hands on their hips and began to turn.

       “I need your opinion. Do–”

They froze in place. Ruari ducked his head slightly, meeting their gaze evenly. Now, they've noticed. Roisin looked at him, sadness in their eyes, perhaps a hint of pity. They looked away for a moment and let out a sigh. Then they closed their eyes and shook their head slowly.

       “Oh, Ruari,” they muttered quietly.

Ruari simply watched them with his eyes as radiant as the sun. They shone like polished gold catching the light. They were ever expressive as he truly was in his glamoured state. When he was in his disguise, so prettily made, his eyes belied his true power, but now– unglamoured, uncaring, unfeeling– his eyes told all.

Roisin did not flinch when they looked back at him again. They walked up quietly and rested a hand on the hardened flesh made of bark and stone. They looked over him slowly and then met his gaze again.

       “Give things time, My Lord. It always takes time…”

       Ruari sighed. He closed his eyes and lowered his head. _“I know,”_ he replied from the air, his voice coming like a soft wind from unmoving, parted lips.

       Roisin did not try to placate him. “It's not important.” They were referring to the awaiting duties now. “So I can leave you for a time to rest. When I come back, I may need something of you.”

       “ _As you wish…”_ Ruari said emptily, pressing his lips together in the space between his teeth, opening his eyes slowly to stare at Roisin with a hooded gaze.

       Roisin chanced a smile, weak but good-natured. “If only, My Lord. I will leave you.”

Their hand fell away, and they turned, quietly heading back the way they came. Ruari lifted his head, tilting his slightly to the right side and relaxing his mouth again.

       “ _Roisin…”_

       “Yes, My Liege?” Roisin paused and turned back to face Ruari.

       Ruari had the grace to look humbled. _“Thank you.”_

       Roisin nodded their head slowly. “Sometimes, for a while, it is better to break. How else can you reform stronger and anew?”

How else…? Ruari felt as if he had an answer. Some sweetness tied in with Corbet, but he didn't break. He carried forward, daring to go ahead into the future hand in hand with a mortal he loved so selfishly. To break now, he felt as if it wasn't a concept he didn't understand, but he could see it in the vines in his arms; he felt it in the leaves falling from his back, small and languid like tears. Roisin gave a pursed smile and then moved away. They passed through the open doors, which they then closed behind them. Ruari moved, slowly meandering through his room. He paced in a circle but soon found himself standing at the edge of the bed. He relived each moment he had with Corbet here on these sheets, and then, in one final tender moment, under them.

He felt like a tree in a cruel ever changing world, slave only to his memories that should have brought him forward. Instead, they kept him rooted in place, numbing him with pain until he was at his base element. He sighed and a soft wind materialised, rattling the leaves that had fallen and withered at his feet.

       “ _Corbet…”_ he called softly, lids lowering until they almost closed.

He missed the sunlight. As Roisin said, he needed this moment of pain. He hoped to wear it on his sleeve and make it his armour for the world was ever changing. If his memories were the sweet warmth of summer, his loneliness now was the bitterness of winter. He was a tree now grown tall with age yet uprooted from his place. He hoped to break and rot and grow into the earth so he could begin small but fresh once again.


End file.
